Twenty-Eight
“What can I do to help?” Rox asked.
“I just spoke to Mira,” Mikaela said.
“You what?”
“We talked. Not the first time. She’s conflicted. Still more of who we knew than I, at least, might have thought. But that’s why she came to me. She wasn’t sure what to do, and wanted my help. So I’m helping. She needs to be stopped.”
“Agreed.” Rox thought a beat. “You mean something specific, don’t you?”
“They’re going to try to kill the President.”
“Of the school?” Rox asked.
“Of the country.”
“Oh.” She pondered a moment. “So?”
“Okay, I know what you mean. But if one of us kills him, we go from being that minority he oppressed for years because of his massive insecurities to that dangerous group who martyred him and need to be oppressed indefinitely to save society.”
“Oh, right,” Rox said, “because we live in a world where even when a rare good thing happens, the consequences render it actually bad.”
“You know the Secret Service is definitely listening into this call by now, right?”
“Yeah, but I’ve been off their Christmas card list for a while, anyway. But hopefully you have more to go on that that. Because otherwise I don’t see how we can actually help- especially since we can’t exactly move freely about in D.C.”
“You can help because you know Mira., and that should get you close enough for your luck to take hold. If you can find her, you can stop this, Maybe even stop that bloated asshole from saying so many bigoted things about us.”
“Hah. Thanks I needed a laugh, after all of that. Oh, and do me a favor. There’s going to be a bunch of new students coming to the campus. Help them adjust- because it is going go be one hell of an adjustment. And take care of them. This can be an awful, lonely, shit-filled world. Don’t let them drown in it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You know if you don’t I’m coming home and kicking your ass, right?”
“Almost makes me want to half-ass it, just to get you home. You deserve that, you know? You were kids when you left. Nobody deserves to be exiled from their homes like this.”
“We’ve got each other. That’s almost the same thing.” “Yeah,” Mikaela said. “Almost.”